BC Conservative Party Leader John Rustad unveiled a proposal Thursday to “overhaul” BC Ferries if elected.
Speaking at shipbuilding company Seaspan’s North Vancouver works yard, Rusdad said under the BC NDP government the province’s ferry service had become unaccountable and plagued by service, mechanical and staffing problems.
Rustad promised a new flat-fee program for frequent ferry users.
“Locals that use the ferries on a day-to-day basis struggle sometimes to even get on the ferry because there can be so many bookings in terms of reservations and they are just asking, saying, ‘Look, we need to be able to use it, this is our lifeline, this is the way we get back and forth to work and to services,'” he said.
“So we want to make sure that there is a priority for locals.”
Rustad added that BC Ferries is not currently delivering a profit, but simultaneously pledged to “protect the rates as best we can in the province so that they are as affordable as possible.”
He said a Conservative government would create a BC Ferries Charter to define performance and service expectations for the Ferry Authority and tie executive pay to performance.
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Rustad also pledged that a Conservative government would prioritize building new ferries in British Columbia.
BC Ferries is in the midst of a major vessel replacement process that aims to deliver seven new large ferries in two phases over the next decade.
Seaspan has said the ferry company’s focus on low-cost bids has pushed it out of contention due to international competitors having lower labour costs.
Rustad said he would like to see at least the two vessels to be delivered in the second phase built in B.C.
“There’s more than 4,000 workers here at Seaspan, both here and in Victoria. They’re proud every day of the work that they do,” he said.
“As Canadians and British Columbians, we should be proud and supportive of our shipbuilding industry in British Columbia.
The BC Conservatives, Rustad said, would push the federal government for bigger contributions in order to help pay for new ferry construction and service improvements.
“We want to make sure we fight hard with Ottawa to get our fair share of the funding that’s needed for infrastructure to be upgraded, for us to have that support we need for BC Ferries.”
Much of the question-and-answer period, however, was dominated by Rustad’s response to decade-old social media comments by South Surrey candidate Brent Chapman calling Palestinian children “little inbred walking talking breathing time bombs.”
Rustad said Chapman had apologized for the “unacceptable” comments, and that he had accepted the apology.
BC NDP Leader David Eby, meanwhile, was campaigning in Coquitlam where he pledged to hire more doctors if re-elected.
Eby said his government had connected 250,000 people with a family doctor in the last two years, and estimated another 160,000 people would be connected with a physician in the next six months.
“We’re doing things like we will be directing the College of Physicians and Surgeons to issue provisional licences to internationally-trained doctors and nurses within six weeks and directing them to issue immediate provisional licences to doctors from other provinces in Canada to practice in British Columbia, the same thing for nurses,” Eby said.
BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau was in Victoria on Friday, where the party is honing in on what it sees as “winnable ridings.”
Furstenau has moved from the Cowichan Valley riding to the district of Victoria-Beacon Hill where she is challenging NDP cabinet minister Grace Lore.
The first of six days of early voting opened across British Columbia on Thursday.
Election day is Oct. 19.
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